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What's
All the Fuss About?
by David Ha’ivri
Dec 09, '03 / 14 Kislev 5764
Noam Federman has been sitting in jail for the last
two months with no charges against him. This comes about after he has been under
house arrest for over a year. His health is deteriorating, as he has been on a
hunger strike for over 40 days. Right-wing public figures and rabbis have
started starting to speak out against Noam's administrative detention and
shocking prison conditions. He is being held in one of Israel’s most protected
high security prisons, in solitary confinement in a very small, dark cell with
no widows, a mattress on the floor and a hole in the corner to be used instead
of a toilet.
This is not the first time that Noam has been arrested. He has stood trail in
Israel tens of times and has been found innocent over thirty times.
The truth of the matter is that over the last 20 years, Rabbi Meir Kahane and
his followers have been fair game for hunting, and the season is all-year-round.
Rabbi Kahane himself sat for eight months on an administrative detention charge,
enduring non-stop harassment from the Israeli authorities. He was forced out of
the Knesset by a list of laws that were especially passed to ban his party. The
media and government school system smeared his name and twisted his motives,
inciting to murder him on a daily basis.
After Rabbi Kahane was assassinated by an international Muslim terrorist cell,
the Kach and Kahane Chai movements were declared illegal terrorist
organizations, despite the fact that no terrorist activity was ever proven or
even associated with them. Offices were closed, members were held in
administrative detention, supporters were banned from entering the country.
Activists like me have been arrested and stood trial for making political
statements. Homes like my own have been broken into with search warrants before
the eyes of my little children so the police can find "seditious material".
Youth have been arrested and convicted for the "crime" of wearing T-shirts with
Rabbi Kahane's picture. And the list goes on….
For the twenty years this has been going on, the "national camp" has at best
stood by quietly, and at worst, played along. Some were stupid enough to think
that "Kahane" was in competition with them, and that they would somehow do
better at the polls if Kahane was not there. Others felt that "Kahane" stains
the image of the right. Through "divide and conquer", the Left succeeded in
isolating Kahane from the consensus. As a result, the political Right and
national-religious movement cut off the branch that they were sitting on, since
"Kahanism" is nothing more than authentic Judaism and Zionism – the very ideals
these groups stand for (albeit in more diluted doses).
What change has come upon the leaders of the national camp? Why have they come
out of their closet to speak out for a Kahanist oppressed by the Israeli
government?
Clearly, they are beginning to feel the heat. With the government closing down
their Arutz Sheva flagship; with the threat of imprisonment hanging over their
heads, as the Left increases its demands to bring more and more rabbis and
right-wing figures to "justice" for their "racist" teachings, they are starting
to realize that if "Kahanism" is "racist" and "terror", then they, as religious
Zionists, are in the same boat. And so, it follows that if "Kahanists" are fair
game to sit in jail for their Jewish beliefs, so are their rabbis vulnerable; if
Kahane can be banned from the Knesset, so can Manhigut Yehudit; if the Kahanists’
mouths can be closed, so can theirs.
This reminds me of a poem written by pastor Martin Niemoeller, one of the most
respected Protestant leaders in Germany:
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out –
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out –
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out –
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out –
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me –
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
We hope that they haven't come out too late.
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